Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian
Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian
Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian
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Thus the distributi<strong>on</strong> of the verb and its nominal derivati<strong>on</strong>s is the same as that of<br />
the sec<strong>on</strong>d term; the area includes both Tocharian and Southern Anatolian, but not<br />
<strong>Northern</strong> Anatolian (at least in this meaning).<br />
A fourth name for the wheel/ chariot is shared by Indo-Iranian (Old Indian rátha-,<br />
Avestan raEa "military chariot; carriage", Middle Persian Turfan rhy "chariot", Old<br />
Persian u-raEa- “having good chariots”, Sogdian rdd-, Khotanese Saka raha “chariot”,<br />
Ossetic raetaen-a d “thill < thigh of a cart” 355 ), Italic and Celtic (Latin rota “wheel”, Old<br />
Irish roth), Western Germanic (Old High German rad) and Eastern Baltic (Lithuanian<br />
rãtas “wheel”, plural rãtai “wheeled chariot”, dvi-rãtis “two-wheeled vehicle” = Latin<br />
bi-rotus, which seems to be a syn<strong>on</strong>ym of a similar and probably more archaic<br />
compound with *k w el- preserved in Latvian, see above). The word (like the two<br />
previous items) is a deverbative noun (cf. the verb reflected in Lithuanian ritu “I turn<br />
around”, Old Irish rethim “I am running”). 356<br />
Comparing these data <strong>on</strong>e may suggest several major stages in the development of<br />
Indo-European wheeled transport. First, all the terms bel<strong>on</strong>g to the period when the<br />
dialectal dispersal had already started (probably early III mil. B.C.). The oldest term<br />
comm<strong>on</strong> to Anatolian (Hittite and Luwian) and Tocharian has links to <strong>Northern</strong><br />
<strong>Caucasian</strong> and Hurrian terminology. C<strong>on</strong>necti<strong>on</strong>s (still disputable) both to the<br />
<strong>Northern</strong> <strong>Caucasian</strong> and Kartvelian terms were also suspected with respect to another<br />
word related to the harness, which bel<strong>on</strong>gs to this earlier period when Hittite had not<br />
yet separated from the rest of the dialects including Eastern Indo-European,<br />
355 See Abaev 1973, II, 383 <strong>on</strong> a possible trace in Scythian.<br />
356 A participial element in Latin rotundus may be a trace of a verb that had disappeared: Ernout and<br />
Meillet 1994, 578. B. Vine reminds me of the possible identity of the -H- in Latin rota < *rot-éH 2 and of<br />
the element reflected in the voiceless aspirated stop in Indo-Iranian *rót-H 2-o-.
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